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March
24, 2002 |
Risk of Future Exxon Valdez Disaster Declines
The danger of a future Exxon Valdez disaster in
Alaska’s Prince William Sound has declined substantially
since the state of Alaska, environmentalists, oil companies, and
the fishing industry brought together a risk management team,
according to a study in a journal of the Institute for Operations
Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS).
 Martha
Grabowski, research professor of decision sciences and engineering
systems at Rensselaer, is one of the authors of "The Prince
William Sound Risk Assessment," which appears in the current
issue of the journal Interfaces: An International Journal
of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences
(INFORMS).
Grabowski and the team estimated the probability
of future accidents involving oil tankers, including collisions,
drift groundings, powered groundings, foundering, fire, explosion,
and structural failure. They did so by simulating the oil transportation
system capable of evaluating the risk of oil spills.
The authors constructed an accident probability
model that accounted for the relationships between vessels’
operating environment, triggering incidents, and accidents. They
used operational data such as vessel type and movement data from
the U.S. Coast Guard, tanker arrival and departure information
from the Ship Escort/Response Vessel System (SERVS), and meteorological
data from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.
They also conducted surveys to obtain data about open fishing
times, locations, and duration. They estimated the probability
of mechanical failures using proprietary failure data supplied
by local shipping companies. Because large databases of local
accident and human error data did not exist, they used expert
judgment to estimate the probabilities of such events.
INFORMS is an international scientific society
with 10,000 members dedicated to applying scientific methods to
help improve decision-making, management, and operations. Members
of INFORMS work in business, government, and academia.
For more, go to http://www.informs.org/Press/ExxonValdez01d.htm.
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